ESCONDIDO: Mayor will take Chargers team jet to Denver game in lobbying bid

Pfeiler says trip could help city's stadium pursuit, boost fundraising for new hospital

Pfeiler said it would also benefit the city if she persuaded
Spanos to serve on a special committee raising money for the new
hospital, which has ballooned in cost from an estimated $531
million in 2004 to $917 million.

"I'll encourage Dean to support the hospital, which could help
it have the latest and newest equipment," she said.

Green, the hospital's fundraising chief, said reviving
Escondido's stadium campaign was not among the reasons he chose
Pfeiler, but that it should be considered a possible ancillary
benefit.

"We'd love to have the Chargers in Escondido," he said.

Green said there should also be no ethical issues regarding the
selection of Moir, whose wife, Margaret, serves on a committee
overseeing expenditures on the new hospital.

Green said he had no concerns that the gift to her husband would
make Margaret Moir's scrutiny less rigorous.

"Knowing Margaret, she has much more integrity than that," Green
said. "The Moir family is beyond reproach."

The Moirs could not be reached.

The hospital receives two slots to an away Chargers game once
per season.

Last year, the slots were awarded to Trustee Dr. Marcelo Rivera
and Al Stehly, former chairman of the hospital's fundraising
arm.

Porter, the Fair Political Practices Commission official, said
the ethics of the trip could be complicated by one public agency
transferring a gift to another public agency.

He also said the commission's tightened rules make it harder for
cities to classify certain trips as "city travel," which typically
involves lobbying excursions to Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

Porter said that if the trip is not city travel, then Pfeiler
might have to declare the flight, ticket and hotel stay as gifts,
which can not exceed $420 per year from any individual donor to any
individual official.

But Epp said he was not worried.

"Because we are treating it as city travel, there is no gift
involved," he said.